Green light for £600m Old Kent Road tower blocks

13 Mar Old Kent Road, best known to some as home to the cheapest property on a London Monopoly Board, is moving up market, with construction of a £600m regeneration scheme to turn a retail park into housing.

The planned development

Landowner Aviva Investors, in conjunction with Galliard Homes, has received a resolution to grant planning permission from Southwark Council for their proposals to redevelop the Cantium Retail Park with eight new blocks including a 48-storey tower that will become the fourth tallest residential tower in London once complete.

Situated at 520 Old Kent Road, the 1.9-hectare (five acre) Cantium Retail Park will be redeveloped to provide a series of new buildings designed around a new public square, pedestrian boulevards, piazzas and landscaped areas, fronting onto a new linear park.

As well as the tallest tower there will be four buildings rising to 37 storeys, two of 11-storeys and one of nine-storeys surrounding a central podium.

The project has been designed by two local Southwark architectural practices. The 160-metre high residential tower has been designed by Cecile Brisac and Edgar Gonzalez of Brisac Gonzalez; the other buildings are designed by Alan Camp of Alan Camp Architects.

They are expected to take six years to build.

The new development will provide 1,113 new homes, including apartments, maisonettes, penthouses and townhouses, as well as 60,913 sq ft (5,659 sq m) of office floorspace, 23,982 sq ft of retail space, 25,144 sq ft of flexible space for restaurants, café, cinema and leisure premises and 6,415 sq ft of space for cultural facilities such as a youth theatre or mini-opera house.

The development will provide one hectare of new public open space in the form of a linear park with trees, planting, parkland, waterfeatures and pedestrian boulevards, connecting with the neighbouring Burgess Park, one of the largest parks in south London.

Galliard Homes executive chairman Stephen Conway said: “The regeneration of Cantium Retail Park will serve to kick-start the wider planned regeneration and transformation of the entire Old Kent Road into a vibrant new high quality commercial, retail and residential destination for South London.”